Omega-3 Trade Association Formed

09/10/06 A group of international companies have come together to form a new Omega-3 trade association called the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3 (GOED Omega-3). The Association will meet officially for the first time on October 6 during Expo East in Baltimore, Maryland. The meeting is intended to act as a jump start to this international not-for-profit trade association, which is committed to increasing the market and regulatory approvals for EPA & DHA based products, developing EPA and DHA consumer awareness and education strategies, and implementing quality standards and other measures that will protect the Omega 3 EPA/DHA category. The second meeting is already scheduled to take place during Supply Side West in Las Vegas (October 19).

GOED Omega-3 is comprised of EPA and DHA Omega-3 industry processors, refiners, manufacturers, distributors, marketers and retailers, as well as secondary associates and other interested parties including healthcare professionals, educators, and researchers.

Based on the commitment from the initial 12 founding members, a new office for the trade association has opened in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The following list represents the current founding member companies:

* Cargill
* Ceres Consulting
* Croda
* Demomega
* EPAX
* Lipid Nutrition
* Lonza
* Marine Nutraceuticals
* Martek Biosciences
* Napro Pharma AS
* Ocean Nutrition Canada
* OmegaPure

The founding members of GOED Omega-3 were all members of the CRN Omega-3 Working Group, which has been dissolved in favour of the new trade association. The new trade association will build on the accomplishments of the old Working Group including its product quality focus and industry acceptance of the voluntary Omega-3 monograph and take on a broader mandate more suited to a trade association.

The GOED Omega-3 “Start-up” Committee consists of Robert Orr, President and CEO of Ocean Nutrition Canada; Philip Fass, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Martek Biosciences; Bjorn Rene, Vice President of Sales at Napro Pharma; and Ian Newton, President of Ceres Consulting.

“A GOED Omega-3 membership provides companies with an unprecedented opportunity – to become architects of a new, positive self-regulatory industry framework that will hopefully be implemented worldwide,” said Robert Orr. “There is a huge nutrition gap that will not begin to close until regulations are updated to reflect the results of thousands of clinical studies – only then will be the public begin to have access to the daily amount of Omega-3 EPA and DHA their bodies need to reap the health benefits.  This is one of the new association’s goals.”

Philip Fass said, “We have had a very positive initial response to the new trade association, so we are expanding our membership to other companies who are interested in joining our effort.  Our target is to have a membership of at least 30 companies by the end of the 2006 calendar year.”